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Episode 12 Rating: 3.5/5 complacent clouds I’m a little bit tired of DanMachi at this point. It’s been a long season with this show and reviewing it weekly has given me a lot of false hope in random plot points … Continue reading →

Episode 10 Rating: 4/5 curious clouds Episode ten of DanMachi actually brings a bit more excitement than the usual dungeon adventures with Bell. Now that he’s a level two with a few skill tricks in his pocket, he’s journeying into … Continue reading →

Episode 8 Rating: 3/5 complacent clouds Episode eight wholly focuses on Bell’s transformation from adventurer into hero. I suppose you call it that. But really throughout the entire series it hasn’t felt like Bell’s transformed that much. Being a gung-ho … Continue reading →

Rating: 3/5 complacent clouds Ahhhh just when you think DanMachi is taking things more emotionally in their fantasy adventure world, the story takes a turn back to the fan service harem aspects. Now that Bell has officially taken Lily as … Continue reading →

WOW I have been behind on DanMachi for many weeks. Life just gets UBER BUSY around exam times. Apologies apologies! But we’re returning to DanMachi this week to our favourite little goddess’s perspective. She’s too adorable when it comes to Bell. How long has she been a goddess? How long has she known Bell? Why is she so attached to him? I’m so curious… Why a human?

Episode 5 Rating: 3/5 curious clouds

Hestia spends some time in the Divine bathhouse to prep herself for her date with Bell. Too cute.

Sidenote: That bathhouse animation though is just ugly. Someone please get KyotoAni in here ASAP to fix water animation.

A while later, Hestia and Bell go on their date. Bell seems as awkwardly nervous as Hestia. It’s too adorable that Hestia actually got a new dress for today. Unfortunately for her their date gets immensely interrupted as a flock of goddesses tail Hestia to figure out who her new man is. Hahahaha Hestia never ceases to amuse me in each episode. By the end of the day, the couple stumbles across a pretty view over the city at the top of a building.

After all the Bell x Hestia happy moments, we return to a pretty sketchy scene with Lily before bouncing down to the dungeon where Bell is back to work slaying monsters. Seriously, I wish Lily got her priorities straight and switched over to Bell’s side rather than simmering in these shady dealings. In regards to Bell I wonder if he’ll ever grow or mature emotionally as a protagonist and not just physically. He still seems SOOOOO naïve in consideration of the half-point we’ve reached in the series. And somehow by the second half of this episode Bell has developed magic skills… somehow… what… HOW?!?? I know you’re the protagonist but really, things can’t just HAPPEN to you, skills need to develop over time!! Or at least hint us with more foreshadowing for future reveals…

Overall I found the episode quite awkwardly paced. To be honest, the entire series chronicling Bell’s progression and growth as an adventurer is pretty sand-boxed style, meaning it’s quite free-form and there isn’t any direction. Other than immersing the viewers in this fantasy world and showcasing some interesting action animation, we don’t get much plot development until we flip perspectives to Aphrodite who has been previously hinted at meddling into the city. Also, for all the hype we got of Aiz at the beginning of the series, we never really got to see her again and she’s been sidelined so heavily as a supporting character she has been non-existent since the first two episodes of the series. She and her comrade stumble upon a collapsed Bell in the dungeon. It is wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon? No Bell-kun, probably not… except it’s probably not too safe… nor romantic. Lolz. Bell TOTALLY has a fanboy breakdown when he realizes that he’s been saved once again by a bishojo swordswoman.

I would really find the series more interesting if it focused more on the fantasy aspect regarding the gods and goddesses. If the story was told from Hestia’s perspective, we might get to see more fantasy-power struggles rather than romantic comedy slice of life and shallow magic-related action. I do wonder if Bell accidentally picking up a grimoire was the work of some goddess meddling rather than just a happy coincidence.

By the end of the episode Bell finds out about Lily’s back alley dealings…

Episode 6 Rating: 3.5/5 happy clouds

Despite Hestia’s harmless visage, she’s quite a clever little deity when it comes to keeping her close ones close with a close eye on her enemies. She suspects Lily as an untrustworthy supporter even though Bell seems quite intent on helping Lily with her shady dealings. As much as they build up the Soma guild to be a dog-eat-dog sort of system and emphasize Lily’s immensely impoverished and tragic back story, I still can’t bring myself to like Lily as a character or emphasize her. She’s mostly annoying to me in the light novel and the manga. I really wish Bell would expose her lies but Bell is just WAY too nice. In fact, we don’t even get enough nice scenes of Lily for us to like her before she BETRAYS Bell on the tenth floor of the dungeon. Lily ends up being double back-stabbed by her guild… AGAIN. Here we get to see Maaya Uchida’s brilliant voice acting here. From betrayal to hopelessness and resignation…

Naturally, Bell comes back to save Lily. The Lily who is now left with nothing, has come back to save Lily… well, thanks to Eina’s background move to send Aiz into the dungeon to save Bell’s ass. Seems like someone is always helping Bell in the background. Thank goodness Bell’s knife was strapped to Lily’s leg. I do admit that I ended up liking Lily more at the end of the episode after she yelled an entire spiel at Bell. It’s good to get these things out Lily, just let it out. OMG Uchida is just AMAZINGLY TALENTED.

To be honest I find it difficult to sympathize or connect with any of the characters in DanMachi. Except for Hestia who actually has deeper motivations stemming from her feelings for Bell, everyone else interacts on a shallow RPG script-basis which really doesn’t provide enough ample opportunities to showcase personality nuances through dialogue. As a result, each character slots perfectly into an archetype that fantasy fans are sorely familiar with, but none of them stand out in particular. This is one of the main reasons I lag behind in DanMachi every week. It’s got tons of interesting action and smooth animation but I don’t love any of the characters enough to actively seek out the series in my spare time.

Hopefully as we progress into the last few episode of the series, we’ll get to see the goddess-plotting come to light and knot up the plot with conflicts around Bell.

Episode 3 Rating: 4/5 curiously excited clouds After Bell leaves Hestia behind to fight the beast, we get a little bit of his flashbacks then. When no one would befriend him or take him into their Familia. Hestia was the … Continue reading →

After Hestia finds out how much Bell has grown on his own, she resolves to support him wholeheartedly along the way and beckons him not to leave her. He of course decides to do his best with her and promises … Continue reading →

Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka, blessedly abbreviated as DanMachi, is a fantasy, adventure series that focuses on a boy named Bell Cranel, an adventurer who quests in the city of Orario where a huge dungeon … Continue reading →